200-pound kid in Nike ad determined to lose weight

Nathan Sorrell says his “haters” are motivating him to eat right and exercise. (Today Show)

An overweight 12-year-old boy who starred in a controversial Nike TV ad during the Olympics appeared on the Today Show yesterday and told Matt Lauer that he’s trying to lose weight.

Nathan Sorrell, of London, Ohio, says his determination is fueled by the overwhelming number of people who criticized him online for being fat.

“It just motivates me more because I want to get off my feet and do extra time for those people that have enough time to be able to sit there and write mean comments on the internet, when they could be doing something like I am,” Sorrell said.

To tie in with the Summer Olympics, Nike released a series of ads showing everyday people participating in sports in small towns around the world with the same name as the Olympic host city, London. The Find Your Greatness Campaign aims to show that that not only championship athletes are striving to break records and push their limits. The kid on the Little League team or the mom running the marathon are also finding their “moment of greatness.”

The most talked about of these ads features 200-pound Sorrell jogging slowly with determination and desperation down a lonely country road. The words “Find your greatness” appear across the screen.

The ad was viewed more than 1 million times on YouTube and sparked a wave of controversy. People were quick to attack Nike for trying to tackle America’s obesity epidemic and many had mean things to say about the “fat boy.” The media tracked down Sorrell and discovered that he wasn’t even a jogger. He was just an overweight, inactive boy who tried out to be in a Nike commercial because he thought it sounded “cool.” A newspaper in Ohio interviewed Sorrel and found out that the boy was exhausted from jogging during the shoot and got sick. All of this irritated many bloggers.

This ad is not true. It’s not realistic, and you know it’s not realistic because it’s not real. That kid didn’t just get up and run—he vomited in a ditch halfway through the shoot. Just getting up and running is not the solution to fat people’s “problems,” because all fat people cannot just get up and run.

But Sorrell isn’t letting any of this get him down and he told Lauer on Today that the haters are motivating both him and his mother to exercise and eat better.